Evidence-based practice implementation and associated factors among nurses employed at public hospitals in Siltie Zone, South Central Ethiopia: A cross-sectional study

Background The use of the best available research evidence in clinical decision-making through the incorporation of clinical experience and patient preferences into the delivery of professional patient care is known as evidence-based practice. The best way to provide high-quality care that is secure and has positive results is through evidence-based practice. To use evidence-based practice. Despite the anticipated advantages of evidence-based practice, nurses have found it challenging to implement. Objectives To assess the implementation of evidence-based practice and related factors among nurses working in public hospitals in the Siltie Zone in South Central Ethiopia in 2023. Methods An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from March 6 to April 5, 2023, to assess the implementation of evidence-based practice. A sample size was 337 nurses working in Siltie Zone public hospitals; a self-administered, semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data was cleaned, coded, and entered into EpiData version 4.6 before being exported and analyzed in SPSS (version 26). To ascertain the relationship between the outcome variable and the predictors, binary logistic regression was performed, and those with a p-value of < 0.25 were entered into multivariate analysis. In multivariate analysis, a p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) was calculated to determine the association between the dependent and independent variables at a 95% confidence interval (CI). Result According to this study, 147 (45.5%) of nurses have good evidence-based practice implementation, and 176 (54.5%) of nurses were found to have poor evidence-based practice implementation. Factors significantly associated with implementation of evidence-based practice were age between 26 and 30 (AOR = 5.247, 95% CI: 1.249, 22.047); educational level, BSc (AOR = 1.956, 95% CI: 1.035, 3.698) and masters (AOR = 4.149, 95% CI: 1.088, 15.817); working unit like emergency (AOR = 3.935, 95% CI: 1.300, 11.914) and inpatient (AOR = 4.684, 95% CI: 1.633, 13.435); ability to formulate a question (AOR = 1.844, 95% CI: 1.062, 3.201); and not relevant to the nursing profession (AOR = 0.459, 95% CI: .236, .878). Conclusion This study showed that the majority of nurses implement evidence-based practice ineffectively. Age, educational level, working unit, question formulation, and the applicability of evidence-based practice to nursing professions were the main causes of inadequate implementation of evidence-based practice. Therefore, multi-stakeholder approaches are required to address the main contributing variables and promote the implementation of evidence-based practice.